False equivalence.

When we wear rainbows, we’re saying “my sexuality is valid, and your sexuality is valid, and bi, gay, pansexual, transexual, asexual, and straight people are all equally valid and have a right to be who they are.” Yes, we’re saying the straight people are valid, too. We aren’t calling for straight people to self-deport. We aren’t calling for straight people to be killed. We aren’t calling for straight people to be converted. Rightwing anti-gay people do call for queer people to be fired from their jobs, denied the right to rent or own homes, denied the right to put their spouses and children on their medical insurance, denied the right to marry their significant others, denied the right to adopt, denied the right to protection from assault and harassment, denied health care, and so forth. They advocate rounding us up and putting us in prison, or camps, or so-called hospitals (depending on how blatant they are in their bigotry). They advocate the widely debunked conversion therapy. They advocate bullying queer kids in school (when you insist that religiously conservative kids can’t be punished for bullying queer kids or the children of queer parents, you are advocating bullying).

When the anti-gay people (including the neo-Nazis) do that, it isn’t a difference of opinion, it is oppression and assault.

My husband, bless his centrist heart, has quite a few friends of the far-right fundamentalist Christian persuasion. I… will not hang out with them socially. I’m just not interested in playing nice with people who actively support political parties, organisations, and policies that make my life more difficult (up to an including deadly). I guess I’m just funny like that.

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All about Alis

Alis Franklin is an Australianauthor of queerspeculative fiction. She likes cooking, video games, Norse mythology, and feathered dinosaurs. She’s never seen a live drop bear, but stays away from tall trees, just in case.